Finland

Culture Name

Finnish, Finn, Finlander

Alternative Names

Suomalaiset
,
Tavastians
, or
Hämäläiset
and Karelians or
Karjalaiset

Orientation

Identification.
The terms "Finland" and "Finns" are external
obscure derivations from early (first century
C.E.
) Roman references to people known as Fenni (probably Lapps or Saami) who
occupied lands north of the Baltic Sea. In their own language, Finns
generally refer to themselves as
Suomalaiset
and their land or country as
Suomi
, which may derive from
suo
, the Finnish expression for a bog or swamp. Finns constitute the majority
of the citizens of the Republic of Finland, which has a Swedish-speaking
minority as well as Saami (Lapp) and Rom (Gypsy) minorities. While
language was a highly divisive issue as late as the 1920s and 1930s, many
Finnish speakers now recognize the value of Swedish for communicating with
other Nordic countries. A distinction between urban, industrialized,
coastal southwestern Finland and the rural interior northeast is an
important historical and regional division in terms of culture and
identity. However, socialist versus nonsocialist affiliations are more
meaningful at the political level. Despite these distinctions, most
citizens strongly believe that they share a common culture and heritage.

Location and Geography.
Finland is bordered on the east by Russia, on the south by the Gulf of
Finland and Estonia, on the west by the Gulf of Bothnia and Sweden, and on
the north and northwest by Norway. A quarter of its territory is north of
the Arctic Circle. Four physiographic-biotic regions divide the country.
An archipelagic belt embraces the southwestern coastal waters and the
Åland Islands. A narrow coastal plain of low relief and clay soils,
historically the area of densest rural settlement and mixed farming
production, extends between the Russian and Swedish borders. A large
interior plateau contains dense forests, thousands of lakes and peat bogs,
and rocky infertile soils associated with a glacially modified landscape
with numerous drumlins and eskers. This district lies north and east of
the coastal plain toward the Russian border. Beyond the Arctic Circle,
forests give way to barren fells, extensive bogs, rugged mountains, and
the large rivers of Lapland. Continental weather systems produce harsh
cold winters that last up to seven months in the interior eastern and
northern districts, yet long summer days permit farming far to the north.
The climate in the south and west is moderated by the waters of the Gulf
Stream and north Atlantic drift current.

Demography.
In 1997, the population was about 5,147,000 people, of whom 93 percent
were ethnically and linguistically Finns. High mortality from wars and
famine dampened population growth between the sixteenth and late
nineteenth centuries. In the twentieth century, a falling birthrate and
emigration led to very low population growth. Dramatic internal migration
accompanied an economic transformation between the 1950s and the
mid-1970s, when agriculture and the forestry industry were rapidly
mechanized. At that time, many young people left the rural east and
northeast to work in the urban industrialized south. While 75 percent of
the population lived in rural areas just before World War II, by the late
1990s, 62 percent of the people were urban dwellers. About a sixth of the
population lives in the Helsinki metropolitan area along the south-central
coast in the province of Uusimaa. Helsinki became the capital in 1812
under Russian control, replacing the role Turku had served during Swedish
domination. Substantial Finnish populations live in Russia, the United
States, Canada, and Sweden, and smaller numbers reside in Australia, South
Africa, and Latin America.

Finland

Linguistic Affiliation.
Finnish belongs to the family of Finno-Ugric languages in northeastern
Europe, Russia, and western Siberia, a group that includes Saami (Lapp)
and Hungarian. The most closely related languages are Estonian, Votish,
Livonian, Vepsian, and the closely allied Karelian dialects of the
Balto-Finnic branch. Although Finnish was established as a written
language as early as the sixteenth century, its official status in Finland
did not become equivalent to that of Swedish until after the Language
Ordinance of 1863. Finnish is a euphonious language with many Germanic and
Slavic loan words.

Symbolism.
About 1.5 million saunas are significant visual architectural symbols,
especially in the rural landscape. Ritualized bathing in the sauna
reinforces a web of cultural ideas about sociality, hospitality,
cleanliness, health,
sisu
("gritty perseverance"), and athleticism. The
Kalevala
, an epic poem synthesized by Elias Lönnrot in the early nineteenth
century, is a powerful literary evocation of Finnish origins, unity, and
destiny as a people. It frequently refers to other aspects of Finnish
culture that have become significant symbols of identity, such as the
savusauna
(smoke sauna) and the ancient stringed instrument the
kantele
. Another mid-nineteenth century artistic achievement, the composition
Vårt land
or
Maamme
("Our Land"), with words by Johan Ludvig Runeberg and music
by Fredrik Pacius became the national anthem. Citizens throughout the
country fly the national flag, a blue cross on a white background, during
the celebration of Midsummer. The national coat of arms, a crowned lion
standing on a red field with silver roses, derives from Swedish heraldic
crests of the sixteenth century and appears on a variety of postage
stamps, banknotes and coins, and official seals.

History and Ethnic Relations

Emergence of the Nation.
Human habitation in Finland dates to the early postglacial period in the
late eighth millennium
B.C.E.
, long before Finno-Ugric migrations into the area from the east or
possibly from eastern Europe. Previous theories held that the ancestors of
the Finns migrated into southwestern Finland from Estonia as recently as
the first century
C.E.
, during the early Roman Iron Age. Recent research, including
paleoecological evidence of agricultural grain pollens dating to the
second millennium
B.C.E.
, suggests a much earlier proto-Finnish presence. A combination of
archaeological, historical linguistic, and genetic evidence suggests that
the spread of the "Comb Ceramic" culture in northern Finland
around 4000
B.C.E.
may represent the appearance of a proto-Finnic-speaking population in
that region that came from an eastern European source area. As the
"Battle-Axe or Corded Ware" culture arrived in southwestern
Finland around 3000
B.C.E.
, proto-Finnic began diverging into early Saami-speaking and
Finnish-speaking populations. The latter people gradually added farming to
their hunting, trapping, and fishing adaptation. By the beginning of the
Bronze Age around 1500
B.C.E.
, these tribes were geographically divided. Those in the southwest were
heavily influenced by Scandinavian cultures, while those in the interior
and eastern districts had ties with peoples of the Volga region. A
series of crusades by the expanding Swedish kingdom between the 1150s and
1293 was the vehicle for spreading the Roman Catholic Church into Finland.
By the time of the Lutheran Reformation in the early sixteenth century,
the Swedish Crown had strong control of colonial Finland, and a modified
estate system forced Finnish peasants to participate in the wars of their
Swedish lords. The destruction of Finnish settlements and crops and large
population losses resulted from conflicts between the Swedish and Russian
empires. By the mid-eighteenth century, there were strong Finnish
separatist movements. Russia finally conquered Finland during the
Napoleonic wars of 1808–1809, annexing it as an autonomous grand
duchy.

National Identity.
The nineteenth century was a period of coalescence of feelings of
national consciousness in scientific thought, politics, art, and
literature, as exemplified by the 1835 compilation of Finnish and Karelian
rune songs in the
Kalevala
. This movement served as a counterpoint to a growing Russification of
Finnish institutions, and Finland declared itself independent immediately
after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The new state was immediately
embroiled in a civil war that resulted from growing class tension between
property owners (the counterrevolutionary "White" forces)
and landless farm, forest, and factory workers (the "Red"
forces) who wanted a socialist state. The scars from that conflict had not
healed when Finland was united by its battles with the Soviet Union during
World War II. Finland surrendered several eastern territories that
amounted to 10 percent of its area, and 420,000 Karelian Finns in those
areas migrated across the newly formed national boundaries to Finland,
requiring a massive resettlement and rural land reform program. Since
World War II, the Finnish parliamentary state has actively pursued an
official policy of neutrality combined with expanded trade and cultural
contacts with the Soviet Union, and then Russia, a political adaptation
known as the Paasikivi-Kekkonen Line.

Ethnic Relations.
Swedish is the second official language and is spoken by about 6 percent
of the population. Living primarily in the southwestern part of the
country, Swedish colonists and Swedish-speaking Finns were, for centuries,
a ruling elite. Swedish was the language of commerce, the courts, and
education, and Finnish was regarded as a peasant language until the
nationalist movement of the nineteenth century advanced it as an official
written and cultural language of the majority. Political tensions arising
from this ethnolinguistic division have largely faded as the
Swedish-speaking minority has declined in size and assimilated through
marriage with Finnish speakers. By contrast, Finland's 6,500 Saami,
or Lapps, have largely avoided assimilation into the cultural mainstream,
having been displaced from the southern part of the country by
northward-colonizing Finns over the past two thousand years. Separateness
is now reinforced as much by the economic marginality and limited
educational opportunities in Finnish Lapland as by cultural and linguistic
isolation. Gypsies have lived in Finland since the sixteenth century and
perhaps have endured the greatest prejudice of any minority. They number
between five thousand and six thousand and in recent decades, the
government has attempted to improve their economic situation and lessen
overt discrimination. Foreigners, while never numerous, have increased to
seventy-four thousand and have come mostly from Russia, Estonia, Sweden,
and Somalia.

Urbanism, Architecture, and the Use of Space

With the rise of permanent agricultural settlements in the fertile plains
of the western and southern regions in the Middle Ages, communal ownership
and management created a system in which an entire hamlet, including
fifteen to twenty closely spaced farms, assumed joint ownership of fields,
forests, and pastures. Land reforms in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries broke down the communal villages, but the newly created
individual farmsteads retained a modified courtyard arrangement with
dwelling units, sauna or bath-house, grain and food storage buildings,
livestock barns, and hay sheds enclosing an inner yard. Wooden domestic
architecture achieved a high level of craftsmanship and embellishment,
with two-story houses marking prosperous farms. However, in the eastern
and interior areas, agricultural settlement occurred later and was
characterized by a more flexible system of land ownership and farmstead
organization. The persistence of "burn-beating" cultivation
(
poltta kaskea, kaskiviljelys
), a form of pioneer extensive farming in which patches of conifer forest
were cut and burned to create fertilized fields, involved mobile
populations and a dispersed pattern of settlement. Remote individual farms
or extended dual-family holdings were won from the forest, often along
glacial esker ridges or "home hills" (
harju, vaara
). While these historical patterns of settlement affect the current rural
landscape, six of ten Finns now live in urban areas. The largest cities
are greater Helsinki with about
911,000 people, Tampere with 189,000, Turku with 169,000, and Oulu with
114,000. The majority of residential dwellings of all types have been
constructed since World War II, largely consisting of apartment house
complexes in large cities. Adapting socially and emotionally to this urban
landscape has been problematic for many recent migrants from the
countryside. Many city dwellers still view themselves as partly rural, a
fact attested to by a weekend and holiday return to cottages in the
countryside. Finland remains one of the most sparsely populated countries
in Europe, with only 26 people per square mile (16 people per square
kilometer). The development of contemporary architectural movements in the
twentieth century may be seen as an attempt to adapt the demands of modern
housing projects, offices, churches, and public buildings to the forests,
lakes, light conditions, and other distinctive features and materials of
the landscape. Pioneered by Alvar Aalto and Erik Bryggman, Finnish modern
architecture employs a "neoplastic" use of space that
emerges directly from the function and surroundings of building
structures. Despite the notable innovations of the twentieth century, much
of the national architectural identity resides in older buildings that
have achieved an iconic status: the medieval castles at Savonlinna and
Turku; eighteenth-century vernacular wooden churches; the early
nineteenth-century neoclassical center of Helsinki designed by C.L. Engel
which now contains the Council of State, the University of Helsinki, and
the Helsinki Cathedral; and Helsinki's railway station, designed by
Eliel Saarinen and completed in 1914, an imposing granite building that
presages the Art Deco skyscrapers built in American cities two decades
later.

Food and Economy

Food in Daily Life.
Milk is prominent in the diet as a beverage and the basic ingredient in a
variety of curdled, soured, and cultured forms; in broths used for soups,
stews, and puddings; and in regional specialty dishes such as
"cheese bread" (
juustoleipä
). There are notable differences between western and eastern Finland in
bread making and the manner of souring milk. A large midday meal in a
rural household may include fish baked in a rye loaf (
leipäkukko
), potatoes (
peruna
), barley bread (
rieska
), cheese (
juusto
), pickled beets (
punajuuri
), cloudberries in sauce, milk, and coffee.

Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions.
Coffee is a "national drink" that mediates the distinction
between the rural interior and the urban industrial

south. In the early nineteenth century, coffee was an expensive imported
beverage consumed by the aristocracy, but it has been incorporated into
all strata of society. It is the center of the ubiquitous "coffee
ceremony," a ritualized display of hospitality, elegance, and
self-restraint in which an abundance of delicate pastries is served.
Commercially produced sausage (
makkara
), which became increasingly common in the diet after the 1950s,
represents a relatively recent shift toward large-scale food-processing
industries. Abhorred by nutritionists for its high fat and sodium content
and ridiculed and scorned in popular lore and jokes, sausage is
nonetheless considered a versatile convenience food. Like coffee, it may
appear as a common festival food at occasions such as Midsummer (
juhannus
), along with cheese bread, potato pasties (
perunapiirakka
), yeast coffee bread (
pulla
), beer, and vodka.
Mämmi
, a brown malted porridge, is typically served at Easter.
Sima
(a kind of mead),
talouskalja
(homemade beer), and
viilia
(soured whole milk) also may be served on special occasions.

Basic Economy.
Livestock raising was a major element in the peasant economy, along with
fishing, hunting, tar production, and peddling. Wood as a commercial
product did not become part of the
farming economy until liberalized marketing policies, improved sawmilling
techniques, and foreign demand converged in the late nineteenth century.
The precariousness of crop cultivation, coupled with the emergence of new
international markets for butter during the Russian colonial period
(1808–1917), intensified the production of dairy cattle. Gradually,
cultivated grasses replaced grains and wild hay as a source of cattle
pasturage and fodder, and after the turn of the century, farmers began to
establish cooperative dairies (
osuusmeijerit
). The general shift toward commercial agriculture coincided with the
decline of the burn-beating system. Nonetheless, many farm families in the
northern and eastern regions maintained an essentially subsistence
orientation until the 1950s. Increased mechanization and specialization in
farm production (dairy cattle, hogs, and grains) occurred in the 1960s as
the labor force moved into manufacturing and service industries; less than
11 percent of the labor force is now involved in agriculture and forestry.
The rural economy is still based on modest family-owned farms where the
marketing of timber from privately owned forest tracts is an important
means of financing agricultural operations.

Handicraft and artisan traditions were well developed historically, and
some have survived the conversion to industrial manufacturing. Men
specialized in making furniture, harnesses, wooden vessels or
"bushels" (
vakka
), and metalwork. The sheath knife (
puukko
) was a versatile tool, and it continues to symbolize maleness in
recreational hunting and fishing. Women specialized in textiles and lace
making. The woven woolen wall rug (
ryijy
) has become a particularly popular art form in homes, emblematic of a
family's patrimony. By the Middle Ages local markets and fairs were
important in the economy, with fairs often held in the vicinity of
churches and associated with saints' days or other aspects of the
religious calendar.

Land Tenure and Property.
Historically, in the west it was customary for a farm to be passed on to
the eldest son or the eldest daughter's husband. In the east, the
land was divided among all the adult male family members. These regional
patterns have largely faded, and intergenerational transfers of land have
become highly variable throughout the country. Despite a bias toward
patrilineal transmission, farms can be inherited by sons or daughters or
the oldest or youngest offspring or can be divided or jointly held by
multiple heirs. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a
landless proletariat constituted half the rural population. Major agrarian
reforms included the Crofters' Law of 1918, the
Lex Kallio
of 1922, and the Land Procurement Law of 1945, all of which created
holdings for landless rural poor and unfavorably situated tenant farmers.
The Land Procurement Law also redistributed land to ex-servicemen and
Karelian refugees in the wake of World War II.

Commercial Activities.
With two-thirds of total output generated in the service sector, the
economy is comparable to those in other advanced industrial nations.
Finland joined the European Union (EU) in 1995, primarily to further
political integration, but has experienced some economic benefits in the
form of lower food prices. The gross domestic product per capita was
$18,871 in 1996, close to the mean for EU countries. A recession-spurred
unemployment rate exceeding 18 percent in the mid-1990s, has been the
largest economic problem, stemming from the Soviet Union's collapse
and the deterioration of bilateral Finnish-Soviet trade. The
markka
, or Finnmark, is the basic monetary unit.

Major Industries.
In recent years, metal, engineering, and electronics products have
accounted for half of the country's exports, with forest products
accounting for another third. The revolution in high-technology industries
has been dramatic. These industries did not become prominent until the
1990s but now produce a large and growing share of exports. The Nokia
Corporation, known in the 1980s primarily for paper and rubber products,
has an expanding international market for mobile phones, computers, and
related telecommunications products.

Trade.
Furs and naval stores constituted a large share of the export trade in
the Middle Ages, mainly destined for the cities of the Hanseatic League.
German and Swedish merchants were prominent in Finland's early
Baltic port cities. After the mid-nineteenth century, foreign trade
shifted toward Saint Petersburg and Russian markets with lumber, paper,
and agricultural products becoming the chief exports. After World War II,
forest products remained crucial to the export economy, but they are now
complemented by sophisticated metal, electronics, engineering, and
chemical products. In recent years, trade with countries in the European
Economic Community has expanded and has been reinforced by
Finland's membership in the European Free Trade Association.

Social Stratification

Classes and Castes.
Before the nineteenth century, Finnish society was divided into peasants

Light blue vases at the Arabia Factory in Helsinki, which is known
for its stoneware, china, and porcelain. Finnish design combines
local artistic themes with tools and materials adapted to demanding
northern conditions.

(
talonpojat
), city dwellers, clergy, and nobility. Economic change led to the decline
of the clergy and nobility and an expansion of the entrepreneurial and
working classes. In more recent decades, considerable social mobility and
an egalitarian ethos emerged with increasing economic prosperity, a
progressive social welfare system, an open educational system, and
consensus politics. While Finns may not always recognize clear economic
class divisions, they are likely to be conscious of the status attached to
educational and honorific titles and political party affiliation. The
currently unfolding class system includes farmers, the working class
(nonrural manual laborers), the petit bourgeoisie (shop owners, small
entrepreneurs), the lower middle class (lower-income service sector), the
upper middle class (higher-income white-collar professionals), and the
upper class (corporate owners and managers). Symbols of these
loosely-drawn social strata, as in many Western democracies, can be rather
subtle. Nonetheless, the kinds of work one does, and the level of
education, professional training and/or professionalism demanded by
one's livelihood, are often strong indicators of the degree of
prestige and status one enjoys in Finnish society.

Political Life

Government.
The administrative district or commune (
maalaiskunta
) embodies a sense of community and self-identification for its residents.
It often coincides with the historical church parish, and is a local unit
of self-government that generally collects taxes, regulates economic
affairs, and maintains public order. Every four years a communal council
is elected to manage local affairs. Much of a council's work is
implemented by a communal board composed of members appointed to reflect
the council's political party composition.

Leadership and Political Officials.
With more than a dozen political parties,
kunta
government sometimes is represented by opposing coalitions of socialist
and nonsocialist party interests. The same principle applies at the
national level, where the two hundred representatives of the uni-cameral
parliament (
Eduskunta
) are often elected by alliances of parties. The Social Democratic Party
and the Agrarian Union (Centre) Party formed the basis of all majority
governments well into the 1980s. Nonetheless, most parliamentary members
follow the positions of their political parties and vote in blocs. The
parliament promulgates laws, approves the national budget, monitors the
legality of governmental
activities, and, in concert with the president, exerts legislative power.

Social Problems and Control.
The institution of a village-governing alderman was part of the
authoritarian moral environment in the dense rural settlements of the
southern and western regions. Village fight groups and fights (
kylätappelut
) were ritualized conflicts, sometimes associated with weddings, which
integrated communities via rivalry relationships. In the sparsely settled
eastern interior, social life was more individualistic and social control
less formal. In contemporary society, independent courts and centrally
organized police forces maintain public order. Crime rates generally
increased between the 1960s and 1980s paralleling the country's
growing wealth and urbanization. The economic recession of the early 1990s
was accompanied by a decline in crime, followed by modest increases in
recent years. Compared with other Nordic countries, Finland has very low
rates for theft and narcotics offenses but an above average rate for
assault.

Military Activity.
Finland's historical position as a frontier of colonization and
military incursions by external empires is part of the collective
conscience. Strategic victories against invading Soviet forces during the
"Winter War" of 1939–1940 are symbolically integral
to the lore and identity of many Finns. By contrast, the "reign of
terror" after the civil war of 1917–1918 profoundly
polarized the middle classes and working classes, with the working classes
remaining alienated and embittered. In foreign relations, Finland
initially attempted to establish cooperative ties with other countries
that had won their independence from Russia after World War I. However, it
soon abandoned that position and began to seek the support of the League
of Nations. After the mid-1930s, Nordic cooperation became the predominant
orientation in foreign policy.

Social Welfare and Change Programs

In recent years, expenditures on social insurance (health, pension,
accident, and disability programs), social transfers of income (maternity
allowances, children's allowances, child support payments,
municipal housing allowances), and social welfare (individuals in need)
have approached one-fifth of the gross national product. The programs are
financed by contributions from the state, municipal governments,
employers, and insured individuals. As early as 1895, compensation was
instituted for workers injured in accidents. A dramatic increase in
medical care needed for disabled war veterans beginning in the 1940s
spurred the state to expand public health programs. Finland has been a
pioneer in maternity allowances and family welfare, offering one of the
most generous systems of payments for mother and child care in the world.

Nongovernmental Organizations and Other Associations

About 10 to 15 percent of the government's aid budget is allocated
to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) involved in development and
humanitarian projects. In 1997, as many as one hundred fifty Finnish NGOs
maintained four hundred projects in more than seventy countries, mostly in
Africa and Asia. The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission, the Finnish
Free Foreign Mission, Finnchurchaid, the Finnish Red Cross, and the Trade
Union Solidarity Centre account for a large share of NGO activity.

Gender Roles and Statuses

Division of Labor by Gender.
In the rural economy, women are the primary cattle tenders and men are
field and forestry workers. Being a good
emäntä
(female head of a farmstead) involves a balance of cow care, child care,
food processing, meal preparation, arduous cleaning in cow shed and house,
and ritual displays of hospitality for visiting neighbors, friends, and
relatives. An
isäntä
(male head of a farmstead) is symbolically and practically associated
with the outdoor domain of preparing and maintaining pastures and hay
fields, cutting wood, coordinating labor with other farms, and operating
and maintaining machinery. However, a decline in the availability of work
crews of kin and friends and a concomitant increase in mechanization have
contributed to convergence in male and female work roles. A complicating
factor is that young women have left the countryside in greater numbers
than have men in recent years. Farms have aging personnel and few
assisting family members, and some farmers are forced into bachelorhood.

The Relative Status of Women and Men.
There is a long tradition of sexual equality in the sense that
women's participation in political activity and public life has
been encouraged. Finland was the first country to provide equal voting
rights to women, instituting female suffrage in elections to the national
parliament in 1906. Fully 9.5 percent (nineteen of two hundred members) of
the parliament of

Wooden buildings in Porvoo. Few of Finland's residences
predate World War II.

1907 consisted of women. Female membership in the parliament currently is
about 33 percent. Indeed, Finland's current president, Tarja
Halonen, is a woman. The traditional role of rural women as resourceful,
powerful workers translates well to urban contexts. The model of a man who
works to support a wife who remains at home is not widely embraced. There
is an old pattern of sending girls for advanced education while keeping
boys in farm work after rudimentary schooling. While women work alongside
men in business, forestry, engineering and other fields, women's
earnings are only 81 percent of men's, reflecting the greater
numbers of women in low-paying service jobs. A lingering area of
conservatism and sexual disparity involves men's unchanging
attitudes toward their roles and the notion that women, despite their
other obligations, are responsible for domestic work and child care.

Marriage, Family, and Kinship

Marriage.
Endogamous tendencies characterized marriage in rural society, with mates
frequently chosen from the same village, parish, or rural commune. This
tendency was most pronounced in the eastern districts among large Karelian
joint families and those of the same background and status. Night courting
and bundling rituals achieved a high degree of elaboration among the youth
in the southwest. Originally, bilocal marriages began with engagement and
leave-taking (
läksiäiset
) ceremonies at the bride's home and ended with wedding rites (
häät
) at the groom's home. Under church influence, those customs were
replaced by unilocal weddings at the bride's home. In recent years,
community and regional endogamy have declined. Marriage rates also have
declined as cohabitation has become more common in urban areas, yet that
pattern preserves some of the aspects of the "trial
marriage" of earlier times, when weddings were performed to
finalize a marriage after a woman had conceived a child.

Domestic Unit.
Historically, joint families were common in the eastern Karelian area,
where a founding couple, their adult male children, and the male
children's wives formed multiple-family farm households that were
among the largest (twenty to fifty persons) in Scandinavia. Elsewhere, it
has been common for only one child to remain on the parents'
farmstead, and smaller "stem" and nuclear families have
prevailed. Overall, family size has become smaller under the impact of
urbanization, dropping from an average of 3.6 persons in 1950 to 2.7 in
1975. Among families with children, the number of offspring declined from
an average of 2.27 in 1960 to 1.9 in 1997.

Inheritance.
A common historical pattern was for a son to take over a farm and care
for his parents in their old age. However, the custom of patrilineal
transmission is changing, perhaps as differential migration to cities
alters the sex ratios in rural areas. In many cases, relinquishing coheirs
(usually siblings who move away) must be compensated for their shares in a
farm by the remaining heir; often this is done with timber income from a
farm's forest tracts.

Socialization

Child Rearing and Education.
Gritty perseverance (
sisu
), personal autonomy and independence, and respect for the autonomy of
others are central themes in child training and personality formation.

Higher Education.
Formal education generally is highly valued. In 1995, 2.2 million people
had graduated from a senior secondary school, vocational

Downtown street in Turku, Finland.

school, professional institute, or university. More than 130,000 students
currently are enrolled in twenty universities and other institutions of
higher education. More than half the students are women. The physical and
social sciences are highly developed and well represented at major
institutions such as the University of Helsinki, University of Jyvaskyla,
University of Oulu, University of Tampere, and the University of Turku.

Etiquette

Finns have a self-conception and reputation for being reserved and sparing
with words. Small talk is not valued. Accordingly, words and verbal
promises are likely to be taken seriously. To some extent this is a
public, formal persona that is belied by the intimacy and voluble
conversation shared by good friends and family members. The sauna is a
notable context in which people are more open and expressive. The rapid
spread of mobile phones, computers, and other communications technology is
creating a society that is highly interconnected, regardless of the nature
of interpersonal interactions and demeanor. Finland has the highest per
capita use of the Internet (nearly 25 percent of the population) and
cellular phones (28 percent) in the world. Finns value educational degrees
and other qualifications and may expect to be addressed with the
appropriate title in professional or work settings. In recent years, there
has been some resurgence in traditional conventions of etiquette that
require the use of the second person plural as a formal means of address.
The second personal singular is appropriate for addressing relatives,
friends, and children. Mutual use of first names implies a close personal
relationship. The customary greeting involves a firm handshake, direct eye
contact, and perhaps a slight nod of the head but rarely embracing or
kissing. As a result of women's involvement in politics and public
life, relations between men and women are relatively equitable.
Condescending attitudes toward women are rarely tolerated. While the
social acceptability of intoxication is decreasing among younger people
and legal sanctions for drunk driving are severe, Finns have a reputation
for weekend binge drinking. This pattern is more prominent among men and,
to the extent that it disrupts family life, retards the social progress
achieved by women. Although the per capita consumption of alcohol is about
average for Europe, Finns have relatively high rates of alcoholism and
alcohol-related social and medical problems.

Religion

Religious Beliefs.
Traditional conceptions of the supernatural had much in common with those
of other Balto-Finnic peoples. The creation of the world was associated
with the culture hero Väinämöinen, and the cosmos was
divided into an underworld of the dead, a middle world of the living, and
a sky-heaven supported by a giant pillar. Supernatural beings or deities
included a god of the sky (Ilmarinen); a rain-giving god (Ukko), converted
to a supreme or universal god under Christian influence; and other spirits
of nature such as Tapio, a forest guardian of game. Many old features of
Finnish-Karelian religion were preserved within the Russian Orthodox
faith, which currently has about fifty-six thousand members in the venue
of the Finnish Orthodox Church. However, Lutheranism, which contributed to
an erosion of native religion, includes about 88 percent of the population
as members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Revivalist movements such
as Laestadianism have flourished in the context of the Lutheran Church.
The distinction between Lutheran and Orthodox traditions ultimately has
its roots in early conflicts between the Swedish kingdom and the
semi-independent state of Novgorod. The 1323 Peace of Pahkinasaari
established a frontier border through Finnish territory. In the ensuing
centuries,
Finns to the west of the "Pahkinasaari line" were heavily
exposed to Swedish, Scandinavian, and German culture and the Roman
Catholic Church (ultimately replaced by Lutheranism), while Finns and
Karelians in the Novgorodian realm to the east were influenced by Slavic
culture and the Eastern (or Russian) Orthodox Church.

Religious Practitioners.
Before Christian and medieval Scandinavian influence, religion involved
shamanism, with practitioners mediating between the present world and the
upper and nether realms of the universe. Traces of this tradition survive
in the divinatory practices of the seer, or
tietäjä
. Evangelical Lutheran clergy, elected by local parish members, are the
prominent religious specialists in contemporary society.

Rituals and Holy Places.
Bear ceremonialism was part of the ancient hunting traditions. Ritual
slaying, feasting, and return of the skull and bones of a bear were
fundamental to sending the animal's soul back to its original home
and thus facilitating its reincarnation. Ceremonies to promote farming and
livestock became associated with holidays and the cult of the saints in
the Christian calendar. Lutheran life cycle rites involving baptism,
confirmation, marriage, and death remain significant for most people.

Death and the Afterlife.
Living and dead formed a close unity in traditional Finnish and Karelian
belief, and death was viewed largely as transfer to a new residence. The
complex rituals accompanying death were orchestrated by women, who
arranged the wake, washed and shrouded the body, and sometimes sang
laments to send the deceased, along with food and implements, to the place
of the family ancestors. Memorial feasts were held six weeks and one year
after death. Those who passed on to the realm of the dead (
Manala
or
Tuonela
) remained a profound moral force among their living descendants. Days set
aside for commemorating the dead eventually were adapted to a Christian
calendar under Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox influence.

Medicine and Health Care

As a symbol of cleansing and purity, the sauna was a focus of therapeutic
and curing activity as well as ritualized social bathing. It was common to
give birth in the saunas before the availability of hospitals in the
twentieth century, and cupping and bloodletting were performed there.
Generally, the sauna is still seen as a remedy for pain and sickness.
Professional medical care and research are highly developed with a network
of 265 state financed district health centers providing a wide spectrum of
health services. Overall health care expenditures account for a
substantial share of Finland's GNP. It is a leading country in
research and treatment in the areas of pediatrics, heart disease, and
alcoholism.

Secular Celebrations

Kekri
, a traditional feast at the end of the harvest season in rural
communities, declined in importance as Christmas came to dominate festival
life in town and urban settings, yet old
kekri
customs, such as tin casting to foretell the future, still occur in the
context of Christmas and New Year celebrations. While Easter retains more
of its religious character than do other church holidays, in the 1980s a
new Easter custom emerged in which children dress up as witches, carry
willow twigs, and travel from house to house seeking treats. Apparently,
the Easter witch phenomenon combines ritual elements from older
Scandinavian and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Midsummer celebrates the
maximum occurrence of light at the summer solstice, a time when towns and
cities are deserted for lakeside cottages and farms, where bonfires are
lit, food and drink are shared between friends and relatives, and the
national flag is flown. Other significant official national holidays
include Independence Day (6 December),
Vappu
(May Day), and Mothers' Day (second Sunday of May).

The Arts and Humanities

Support for the Arts.
The government maintains a competitive art grants system that allows
composers and performing artists to pursue creative work for one to
five-year periods.

Literature.
Finnish culture is known for its rune song (folk poetry) traditions,
which were synthesized in the
Kalevala
, a powerful symbol of national identity. Aleksis Kivi's 1870 novel
Seitsemän Veljestä
(
Seven Brothers
), an unromantic portrayal of the struggle to clear virgin forest,
furthered the development of Finnish as a literary language. That novel
helped fuel the burgeoning national consciousness and became a source of
inspiration in many areas of the arts. Influences from Scandinavian and
Russian literature in the late nineteenth century reinforced a trend
toward realism and social criticism, as exemplified by Minna
Canth's depictions of women and the poor and Juhani Aho's
treatment of emotional experience. Despite neoromanticist yearnings, a

A Finnish family in a sauna in Oulu, Finland. Saunas provide a less
formal, more open space for reserved Finns to express themselves.

strong realist current infused literature in the early twentieth century.
This is seen in Ilmari Kianto's tragicomic portrayal of a tenant
farm family's struggles during the prohibition years of the 1920s,
Ryysyrannan Jooseppi
(
Joseph of Ragged Shore
) (1924), and in the Nobel Prize winner F. E. Sillanpää's
evocations of rural landscapes that overpower or dwarf human actors. From
these roots have arisen versatile recent novelists and prose writers,
including Väinö Linna, Antti Tuuri, and Olli Jalonen. The
tradition of depicting ordinary people in familiar social settings has
continued, although powerlessness, anxiety, and other psychological states
have become prominent in contemporary literature.

Graphic Arts.
Innovative functionalist movements have distinguished architecture and
the design of furniture, ceramics, glass, and textiles. The reputation of
Finnish design for combining local artistic themes with tools and
materials adapted to demanding northern conditions was established at
international fairs and expositions early in the twentieth century.
Similar innovations in industrial design since the 1960s are seen in
protective equipment, forestry machinery, recreational clothing, sporting
goods, and electronics. The arena of contemporary visual arts is complex
and evolving. As in architecture and design generally, a concern with the
forces, shapes, colors, and textures of the northern landscape and the
human relationship to nature have strongly influenced painting, sculpture,
and other art forms. This is particularly evident in the representational
romantic art that blossomed at the end of the nineteenth century. Akseli
Gallen-Kallela's
Great Black Woodpecker
(1893) and his numerous paintings interpreting the
Kalevala
are exemplars. Abstract art movements did not gain a foothold until the
1950s. In recent years, however, graphic artists have experimented with
innovative processes of image production and multimedia technologies to
create new forms of art that sometimes serve as critiques of society and
technology. In addition to a nationwide network of museums that arrange
exhibitions, a new Museum of Contemporary Art (KIASMA) has been opened in
Helsinki.

Performance Arts.
The
Kalevala
had an impact on musical performance. The composer Jean Sibelius drew
inspiration from this source in composing his symphony
Kullervo
in the early 1890s, and later his life and work became important symbols
of the national identity. Opera gained a significant foothold with the
organization of a festival at the fifteenth-century Olavinlinna Castle at
Savonlinna
between 1912 and 1916. That festival was revived in the 1960s, presaging
a revival in opera in the 1970s and 1980s that has continued to the
present. Operas drawing from specific historical events or themes, such as
The Last Temptations
and
The Red Line
, have resonated with Finnish audiences. Finland has nearly thirty
symphony orchestras and a dozen major festivals offering classical, folk,
and contemporary music as well as opera. Theater is another area with a
rich history and a vibrant experimental present. There are about sixty
institutional theaters, mostly in the cities and larger towns, and outdoor
summer theater is often intertwined with community festival life in
smaller towns and rural locales where amateur companies predominate. Plays
based on the novels of Aleksis Kivi and Väinö Linna, are a
popular part of the repertoire in those settings.

Bibliography

Jarvenpa, Robert. "Agrarian Ecology, Sexual Organization of Labor
and Decision Making in Northeastern Finland." In Tim Ingold, ed.,
The Social Implications of Agrarian Change in Northern and Eastern
Finland
, 1988.

Lander, Patricia Slade.
In the Shadow of the Factory: Social Change in a Finnish Community
, 1976.

Pentikäinen, Juha Y.
Kalevala Mythology
, 1989.

Sarmela, Matti.
Reciprocity Systems of the Rural Society in the Finnish-Karelian Culture
Area
, 1969.

Great website thank you! My entire family is from Finland (mother and father) but they passed. I am always so interested in Finland and all of my heritage. I hope to visit someday and I will start to incorporate these traditions in my new family. Written in The United States, Michigan

This was a great read. My great grandparents came to Canada via the united states during WWII. They raised my grandmother as a Finn with their Finnish surname of Pitkanen in the prairies of Canada as she spoke the language and they had a Sauna on their farm. Ive been so interested in my Finnish heritage and it is so interesting to find similarities in my self with the mentality of Finns even though I didn't grow up there!

I am wondering if the costumes worn follow the paternal or maternal lineage or if the costumes are strictly by region i.e. if you live in a certain region you wear that region's costume? thank you for your response.

Great article, with lots of essential knowledge about Finland, its culture and traditions.

On the saami part though... I noticed a small mistake, below the picture of the saami man. The desigh of his hat indicates he's from tribes of western Lapland (Municipality of Enontekio) and not from the shores of Lake Inari. There are three different main tribes of saami people living in Finland, and they each have very separable designs to their clothing.

Great article! Grandparents are from Finland and all of our relatives cherish our heritage. We are having another family reunion and this info will be great to hand out. Also, I am creating a banner that represents our Finnish heritage, the SISU if you will, and would appreciate anyone having an idea or two of something unique to create. The coat of arms is nice but a bit on the aggresive side with the lion, the swords and tongue lolling around, so any ideas would be appreciated.

Now I understand my in-laws! I am Irish and we are the complete opposite! We are talkers and open drinkers They are all behind the back bickerers and closet drinkers who pretend to be lilly white goody goods. ALl my nieces and nephews are meth experimenters and my on sister in law left my brother in law( she was German) because he was quiet and a snore. She smoked a lot of grass and drake a lot. I love my husband ,we never fight and I have forced him to do some crazy things in thirty years...he is Irish by osmosis! I love my Finnish family and friends...I love their coffee and vodka cocktail in the am...who ya kidding guys!

great articles, will assist with a presentation I am doing on Finland. Am so proud of my Finnish roots - was born in South Africa, and love both countries - been to visit family three times and loved every minute of it. canot wait to get back!

Few comments: Alternative names: Finns mean all the finns, hämäläiset and karjalaiset are finnis tribes like savolaiset and pohjalaiset. poltta kaskea, kaskiviljelys is more right in form kaskenpoltto, kaskiviljelys, fish baked in a rye loaf is not leipäkukko but kalakukko, soured whole milk is viili, pulla and nisu means same thing but in different finnish dialects. There are two different styles of The woven woolen wall rugs, the one is ryijy and the other is raanu .

Hello, this is very interesting, about Finland and Finish culture. I would love to visit Finland and experience the culture and hospitality of Finland, Norway and Sweeden and Denmark. Perhaps live with them for a while.
My Good Wishes and Warm Regards to the lands of Scandinavia.
Nihal Mahindaratne.

Paivaa, my Grandparents were from Oulu and I grew up with the Finnish language in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but now nobody to speak with in my relocated area in California, so I have lost most of my Finnish. This is a great article and will help me when I make a presentation soon about Finland to my friends and patients where I Volunteer in a V.A. Clinic